Olympic boxing champion explains decision to stand for Nigel Farage's Reform UK

Olympic gold medallist has explained his , with the former boxer standing as a candidate for 's . Campbell is Reform's candidate in the mayoral election for Hull and East Yorkshire.

The 37-year-old won gold at the before turning professional the following year. However, Campbell failed to win a title after falling short in fights with Jorge Linares, Vasiliy Lomachenko and Ryan Garcia.

He retired from in 2021 and has largely remained out of the limelight before it was announced in February that he would be standing for Farage's right-wing party in Hull's mayoral election.

Campbell has now revealed the move came about after he joked about it while having breakfast with friends, with the boxer believing one of them pitched the idea to Reform. He told the : "I said, 'Wouldn't that be some story?'"

"Literally, it's just been a whirlwind ever since. And it was only probably five days actually before the announcement where I said: 'All right. Do you know what? I'm going to do it.'"

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The decision has been met with backlash, but Campbell insists he is not "racist" as "one of my best friends is black" and claims he has been sent messages of support from "a group of my friends from Bradford that are all Muslims".

"I've been in boxing my whole life, knowing that, as soon as the bell rings, everybody's equal," he said. "So I've always treated everybody equal."

Campbell has also been accused of homophobia after it emerged that he had made offensive remarks on social media in 2011 and 2012. "If someone's going to pull out what I said when I was – how old was I back then? – 22 [sic] years old and take it out of context if it was meaning banter or something like that, I think that's very childish," Campbell said in response.

"But have I ever posted anything negative? Have I ever called anybody any names? Have I ever maliciously sent negativity or bad comments to anybody? Never."

A local primary school has also dropped Campbell's names from one of its 'houses' due to Department of Education guidance about their "legal duty to be politically impartial". However, Campbell is not happy with the decision.

He said: "What is that teaching our kids? What is the education behind that – taking my name off one of the houses? Are you going to take away all the good stuff that I've done?

"If this gets in the way of my family or conflicts with anything with my family, or puts anything in jeopardy, see you later, I'm done. I'm gone."

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